Burger King Get It... Qantas Don\'t...

"We care about our customers" and "We love hearing from our customers" are two popular refrains that most companies like to bandy about at every opportunity and they are also two statements that for most companies are outright lies. A recent trip to Wellington in New Zealand to present at the New Zealand Hi-Tech Awards highlighted the difference between a company that truly walks the talk and one that doesn't. First the one that doesn't...

I'm sitting on board Qantas watching a movie when a one of the Flight Attendants approaches me to ask if I would be willing to fill out one of their Customer Satisfaction Surveys. I decline because I consider the Customer Satisfaction Survey a surefire sign that my opinion doesn't matter. It is purely a marketing exercise - look like you value your customer and then summarise the data in such a way that the customer looks like they care about you. It's almost always conducted by someone (like a Flight Attendant) who has no authority to act on any recommendation you might provide and almost always is full of questions that are either irrelevant to your service experience or to your concerns. On the odd occasion I have consented to such a survey I always find myself saying to the person that administers it that they are not asking the right questions. The things I want to talk about are clearly not the concern of the company asking for my opinion so why ask at all? The worst thing is that these surveys all appear to have been written by the same person - some Hotel Customer Satisfaction Surveys are actually verbatim copies of each other!

Upon arriving in the city of Wellington, however, I had an occasion to go for a walk and while passing a Burger King I spotted this sign prominently displayed in their window: